


WATCH YOU SLEEP

by kattegatsun



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, College Student! Rey, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Past Abuse, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Writer! Ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattegatsun/pseuds/kattegatsun
Summary: In her dream, it was dark and cold, but she was holding his hand, watching him sleep. She felt like she would have to leave soon, but she didn’t want to. All she wanted to do was sit there with his head in her lap and stroke his face, his damp hair and listen to him breathe, except…-He could finally hold her - the small fragile creature that consumed him, drew him into her orbit and bathed him in her light until he was so entirely, so painfully devoid of the dark. She was finally there, in his arms, and yet the light was out… He focused, let his eyelids fall shut because it destroyed him to look in her vacant eyes, and reached towards the power in his veins- No, not the power, he knew now - the force. The force that had a will of its own and couldn’t be twisted or bent to his will, the force that he needed to talk to and direct… He didn’t care for once if he needed to beg. He would beg for her sake...-Rey has recently moved from London to New York to study Computer Engineering, having left Luke and the life as she knew it behind. Ben has only just began to rebuild after years of self-destruction and making all the wrong choices. What happens when they collide.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. DARKNESS / TOUCH

_ In her dream, it was dark and cold, but she was holding his hand, watching him sleep. She felt like she would have to leave soon, but she didn’t want to. All she wanted to do was sit there with his head in her lap and stroke his face, his damp hair and listen to him breathe, except… _

Rey awoke with a start, eyes wide open, a single tear rolling down her cheek, and immediately flinched, squinting at the light that her flimsy curtains didn’t even try to block out, or at the very least diffuse. She acutely missed home and Luke just then. She would have to call him tonight, make sure he’s eating and taking his meds, and staying generally on top of life - or as much of it as she was able to leave behind when she moved to New York - and maybe attempt again to drag him kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century via the means of FaceTime. Rey missed his grumpy old face.

But there was more, something else she was missing, an essential bit that kept making itself known through a gap in the shape of something vitally important that Rey couldn’t put her finger on for months now. In the end she did what she’s always done when the hollowness started gnawing at her - aching and elusive - she got on with her life.

Her twin bed creaked as she finally kicked herself up. Her tiny shoe-box of a room was a right mess, clothes on the floor, books and school projects on every flat surface, sprinkled here and there with stray computer parts she couldn’t stop dragging over no matter how much Rose complained, and BB - an orange tabby stray they rescued from the apartment block back alley and hid from the landlord ever since - dosing peacefully on her school bag. Rey had nothing to complain about, though - they were crazy lucky to have found a flat so close to campus for what they could scrape together, and a roommate to go with it.

Rey met Rose her freshman year - a timid girl who turned out to have a crush on Rey’s friend Finn. Nothing really came out of that one, but they continued dorming together anyway. Jannah had the apartment first and was looking for new roommates after her old ones graduated. They didn’t know each other very well back then - other than Jannah making Rey’s coffee every morning in the local caffeine watering hole, but as it turned out she was desperate enough about the two missed months worth of rent to give anyone a shot. The three of them got on surprisingly well all things considered, especially taking into account that Rey never had friends like that before - friends who weren’t guys and still didn’t try to screw her over or bully her. 

There was still time before her first period, at least enough to have some cereal, so she carefully maneuvered her way out into the little kitchenette/living room squeezed awkwardly between three separate bedrooms and one shared bathroom, and froze in the doorway. The tiny TV was on, Rose having a habit of switching it on the moment she made it home and never switching it off. The morning news currently ran a story on the upcoming elections and primarily Senator Palpatine’s campaign. 

Rey watched him - pale and gray - make snide remarks about some political scandal involving an opponent whose name Rey couldn’t be forced to bother with, and gritted her teeth. Her appetite was gone, in fact she felt mildly sick even as she turned on her heels and went back into her bedroom, banging the door shut between herself and the respectable Senator. She leaned against the door, breathing, telling herself to calm down, but finally gave up and began furiously grabbing random clothes from the floor and yanking them on.

BB bristled and gave her a petulant stare when she jerked her messenger bag from underneath him without much warning, and that in the end was what helped sober Rey up a bit. She kneeled next to the cat and tried to earn his forgiveness by scratching between his ears.

“Sorry, BB,” she muttered, “Sorry, little one.”

When she came out again the story on Palpatine was surely over, although she wasn’t going to risk it and go switch the damned thing off. She was fully planning to tune out whatever the blond and glossy reporter was saying from her chair across from some sickly-looking red-haired man with a scowl so deep it made her wonder whether he was actually in pain. As she laced up her trainers though, some of it found its way into her head regardless.

“Today we have in our studio Mr. Hux the publisher of The First Order Books and here in my hands I have their most best-selling novel - The Dark Side by Kylo Ren. It’s fair to say, Mr. Hux that this book has taken the world by storm in the past two years. It was called anything and everything, from the modern classic to torture porn, getting the most controversial reviews from critics and readers alike. And what, I’m sure, we’d all like to know are two things - first and foremost - are the rumors about an upcoming film adaptation true? And secondly - does this mean that the elusive Kylo Ren is finally ready to go public?”

Rey caught herself watching the woman upside down, still bent over in the process of getting her shoes on, which made her a bit dizzy. Slowly, she straightened up.

Hux took over the screen just then, his perpetually sour expression making Rey immediately dislike the man.

“Well, Susan, we are immensely proud of the success The Dark Side achieved and I can say that we are in fact, in the middle of negotiating the possibility of the movie adaptation with several interested studios, but unfortunately it’s too soon into the process to make any other announcements. As for Mr. Ren - he’s still very much resolute in his decision to remain incognito in his work.”

“What about the claims of his writing being manipulative and exploitative, and the poor - some might even say ruthless - handling of subjects such as abuse, trauma and mental illness in his story? Wouldn’t Mr. Ren like to address these comments directly and will this backlash affect the screenwriting process in any way?”

They cut to Hux’s face too quickly this time and Rey couldn’t help but flinch at the expression of pure undiffused loathing there, just before he checked himself.

“Mr. Kylo Ren did what an author can and should do - he created a work of fiction able of provoking thought and establishing a conversation, where this conversation goes from there is not up to him or any one of us. As for the censorship, we’d like to avoid it as much as possible, as it would sully the purity or Mr. Ren’s work and possibly ruin the clarity of his message-”

Rey turned away. The back-and-forth would go on like that - she realized - the reporter would attempt to provoke Hux and he would act like might’ve, without really giving anything of substance away and so on, and so forth. As she left the flat though, Rey couldn’t stop thinking about the book.

It was way too chilly for the middle of November; too damp and grim, and dark for how early in the day it was-

_ The Dark Side - what a pretentious title! And yet everyone and their mother has read it, delighting in the horror and loving to get outraged about it on Twitter. Even Finn read and happily hated it! _

Rey stepped over a puddle, although it hardly did much for the state of her battered old trainers, and bundled tighter in her cream wool coat. She needed to focus on her class, it was as difficult to keep up with as she would’ve expected from how hard it was to get in in the first place-

_ Except the cover was still all Rey could see - black and red, with a single silhouette of a man so small against the raging scarlet of his surroundings, so lonely, so very alone… No! She didn’t have time for light reading. She had too much schoolwork, not to mention her job in a computer repair shop on campus. And to think of the money she’d have to throw out on it - it was probably rubbish anyway! It simply wasn’t worth it. _

She walked briskly past a bookshop with its entire window tiled with copies of The Dark Side on her way to Jannah’s coffee place. She didn’t even realize there was a bookshop on the way over- 

_ How long has it been there without her noticing? _

She slowed down, then stopped entirely-

_ That’s silly! She didn’t even have to buy the bloody book, she could borrow Finn’s, couldn’t she? Except she didn’t want Finn’s book - Rey abruptly, overwhelmingly wanted it to be her own… She didn’t have too much of her own. Couldn’t she just have that one thing? _

The doorbell rang through the dusty interior when she pushed the door open.

It was warm and steamy in Jakku, and much less crowded than usual. There were a few people around, mostly sitting alone with their laptops on and their coffees forgotten, quickly turning lukewarm. Rey’s favorite shabby old table, in the corner by the window with a view of the entire street, was uncharacteristically vacant and she regretted for a second always being in such a rush.

A moment later, though, the line had moved on and Jannah flashed her a gap-toothed smile, effectively driving away the sudden melancholy, and Rey couldn’t help grinning back.

“What’s that you’ve got?” She asked the moment Rey made it through to her, because of course Jannah’d choose to pay attention today of all days!

“Um, it’s nothing,” Rey muttered, surprisingly self-conscious, and attempted to hide the copy of The Dark Side in her messenger bag, which was so stuffed already, there was no way she could fit anything else, so it only gave Jannah a better look.

“Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re finally going to read it!” She giddily demanded.

“I don’t know, I guess I might as well,” Rey shrugged, “Can I get my coffee now?”

“Damn, you can have it on the house,” Jannah snorted back, clearly amused by the whole turn out, “Do you know that you’re the only person who haven’t read it yet that I know?”

This was Rey’s turn to snort.

“Surely that can’t be right…”

Jannah didn’t answer that, which Rey thought might be a bad sign, and opted for handing her a scolding hot paper cup with an annoyingly knowing look instead.

With coffee in hand she felt much better equipped to deal with the horrible weather, and the rest of her walk through campus was remarkably pleasant. She even spotted a grey 1970’s Dodge Charger parked outside her building and with no owner in sight got to have a good look at it. It was in an extraordinary condition - cared for and without a scratch, with golden dice dangling from the rearview mirror.

By the time Rey made it to her Computer Engineering class it her coffee was halfway finished, the auditorium was mostly filled, and Finn and Poe were already in their usual seats - sixth row in the middle waving her over.

They chatted a bit about schoolwork and that weekend getaway that Finn and Poe kept trying to get her to go on with them, before Professor Holdo walked in.

Her arrival was usually accompanied by a settling hush, so Rey wasn’t all that surprised when the auditorium fell completely silent, except when she looked down Professor Holdo wasn’t alone.

Behind her in walked this tall guy, dark and broad-shouldered, with longer hair and a very subtle self-deprecating smirk, dressed in a simple black sweater and a pair of black jeans. He had an interesting face, Rey thought, not necessarily handsome and potentially severe, except it wasn’t severe, it was almost… serene.

“What the fuck,” Poe breathed next to her, just as a few other people started murmuring in hushed voices.

“Is it?” Echoed Finn.

“It can’t be,” a girl from the row in front of them shook her head.

There were people like Rey, she noticed - shooting others confused or disapproving glances, but there was far more of those who stared at Professor Holdo in entranced awe. Only it wasn’t the professor who held their attention, it was the tall dark guy in her wake.

“It’s him,” Poe finally decided, “It’s fucking Ben Solo, right?”

Rey felt like she couldn’t breathe, like earlier when she saw Palpatine on TV, except she wasn’t angry this time. She was terrified. And happy - no, euphoric - and confused, and terrified.

It was as if that small hollow corner of her that kept bothering her wasn’t quite so hollow anymore. It was as if someone had reached out to her through the darkness and offered her a hand…

“Who?” She mouthed faintly, not even sure if Poe could hear her and absolutely refusing to take her eyes off the guy to check.

“Ben Solo,” Finn answered instead, in an urgent agitated whisper, “He’s Leia Organa’s son, and his father is that racer Han Solo!”

That didn’t make any sense to Rey - the names did ring a bell somewhere deep in her memory, but she was too caught up in her panic, too focused through a pinhole of her vision on the face that seemed so right and so wrong at the same time, to ask anymore questions…

“His mom could be a president,” whistled Poe.

Now it all clicked into place.

Leia Organa - as in Senator Leia Organa, the obscure political opponent Palpatine mentioned just this morning. 

What was it he said?

_ “Leia Organa is a rebel. And I do admit, she did achieve a certain notoriety by chaining herself to trees and exposing for the camera, but rebels have no business running this country.” _

That’s it…

And now here was her son, the son of Palpatine’s enemy staring right at her - a nobody in the middle of a sixth’s row, who could barely even breathe.

Rey let out a shaky sigh that to her ears sounded like thunder, and Ben Solo smiled up at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is happening... Let me know what you think and I also need your advice with Han Solo. What do you think - Pop Han dead or alive for this one?


	2. FALLING AGAIN

_He could finally hold her - the small fragile creature that consumed him, drew him into her orbit and bathed him in her light until he was so entirely, so painfully devoid of the dark. She was finally there, in his arms, and yet the light was out… He focused, let his eyelids fall shut because it destroyed him to look in her vacant eyes, and reached towards the power in his veins- No, not the power, he knew now - the force. The force that had a will of its own and couldn’t be twisted or bent to his will, the force that he needed to talk to and direct… He didn’t care for once if he needed to beg. He would beg for her sake..._

An annoying, persistent buzzing invaded his dream. Ben tried to tune it out, there was something important he needed to do and it wasn’t done, not yet-

Bzzt-bzzt-bzzt!

He groaned and threw his arm out in the general direction of his bedside table, where his scourge of a phone was still convulsing in agony, felt something tumble, then heard it crash - probably his glass of water - and felt momentarily satisfied with the minor destruction. This was what woke Ben up in the end.

He didn’t do reveling in destruction anymore. He was no longer that person and the fact that he had to remind himself of that as often as he did infuriated him even more. He needed to be better, he should’ve been better than that by now!

Gritting his teeth, he squinted at the screen. 

If this is how this day was going to start, however was it going to end? With the annihilation of the universe maybe? That would be grimly appropriate.

Ben drew the phone closer, pressed the button and sighed.

“Yes,” he cautiously asked.

“Where the fuck are you?” Seethed Hux, already in a full spin of another one of his famous hissy fits. 

“Home,” Ben replied coolly, as familiar with this side of his publisher as anyone.

“Don’t play dumb with me! You read my emails, you know you’re supposed to be in the studio! I don’t give a fuck about your suffering artist bullshit or your privacy, you understand? This isn’t your teenage drama anymore, this is business. Can you even imagine how much money is at stake here? No, because you were born with a silver fucking spoon up you ass! So listen here, you ungrateful self-important son of a bitch - I made you and I can make it so you’re never published again, _Kylo Ren_ -”

It was nothing - Hux’s threats were only a big and pointless temper tantrum after all, they both knew full well than Ben was bigger than that by now, anyone in the industry with half a brain would at the very least consider selling their own mother for a chance to work with him - but that last one, that one stung. 

_Kylo Ren…_

Ben hated that pseudonym. Hated it almost as much as he hated the book he wrote under it. 

He wasn’t ‘ _Kylo Ren_ ’ anymore, worked too hard not to be, and somewhere deep down in his greedy hate-filled little mind Hux realized that and clearly wasn’t beneath using it.

“Alright,” Ben said finally in a voice just as dull and devoid of inflection as before.

“Alright?” Hux sounded taken aback, “How long till you get here?”

Ben took a very quiet steadying breath, his hands began to shake, the metal and plastic of his cellphone straining under the pressure of his grip.

“I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going public. You can go ahead and try to destroy me, but we both know which one of us is going to get the worst end of that bargain. Now, if we’re done here, I’d like to go and write you another goddamn golden goose-”

He hang up. 

Then very gingerly let go of his phone and watched it flop down on his crumpled grey sheets. The screen was cracked.

This is what he hated most of all. The fact that he slipped so easily into Kylo Ren, one stupid careless act at a time, that’s how he became this person - without even noticing. And going back to Ben Solo was such a struggle! It took every ounce of his willpower, every second of his day to even try and regain his balance. And then something stupid and pointless like that would hit him out of nowhere and knock him back down again…

He probably deserved that.

Ben stood up deliberately slowly, collected the pieces of his shattered glass, and set out to take a long cold shower. His footsteps echoed against the tall walls of his cold empty apartment. He wondered if it was, in a very diagnosable sort of way, a reflection of what he was on the inside - empty and morbid… 

He attempted to fill the emptiness with coffee that his ridiculously overpriced coffee machine produced without as much as a sound, grabbed his ultra-slick laptop and opened it to the page he gave up on last night. The words he’s been writing for the past three weeks were stale and flat, lifeless, but that would change today, he hoped.

By the time he was finished slicing up the passages and scraping entire pages it was time to go. Ben put on his usual - black jeans and sweater, grabbed his glasses and a notepad, and left the apartment twirling the car keys on his index finger.

The Falcon waited loyally for him in the underground parking lot - all steel and angles. He could almost see himself - a toddler in his father’s lap turning the wheel as much as he could and making silly car noises. He absolutely worshiped his father at that age - the great race driver Han Solo, the winner of Le Mans and Sebring, and Formula 1. He loved him then almost as much as he resented him later, after the divorce with his mother and all the no-shows. 

Except Han Solo always showed up when it mattered. If it wasn’t for him, Ben wasn’t sure he’d even be alive right now…

He revved the engine and drove to the campus. He never actually graduated, he didn’t have a degree, but that wasn’t much of a loss… Still, he felt his nerves acting up, which was ridiculous. He was a grown man! This wasn’t his first day of class, this was work… He needed to get a grip!

He parked in front of the building in one of the resigned staff spots that they let him have for the time being, and hoped he won’t have to go and say ‘hi’ to Dean Kenobi again today. There was something about the old man - maybe the fact that he used to teach his mother and uncle, and then appear at her occasional house parties - that made Ben feel like a child about to get scolded. Not that Holdo was much better, with her strict demands to the students she admitted to her class and the attitude of a war general…

Even getting this far took some major favors, and even more major donations. But this was important, he needed it - write what you know and all that. At least he hoped it would work.

He caught Holdo just leaving her office and tried to make polite conversation, but ended it up with him trailing awkwardly after her, feeling like he couldn’t catch his breath for some reason. 

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all…

He could still walk away - he could let Holdo walk in and shut the door in his face, and forget all about it, but there was something that despite all the awkwardness and anxiety drew him in.

The moment he walked into the auditorium, the ambient buzz of conversation broke into a horrible sort of quiet, familiar in its desolation.

Ben smirked to himself - he definitely deserved that.

And that’s when the whispering started. He tried to ignore it, focusing on the instructions Holdo gave him in a quiet, but nonetheless imposing voice:

“Take a seat at the back. At least try to keep up, I have no time to explain the basics to idle listeners. And for God’s sake, keep your head down, if you’re even familiar with the concept, because if I have to interrupt my class even once on your behalf, it won’t make any difference however much you donated to the school.”

Ben only nodded, gritted his teeth and turned away.

And then he couldn’t remember where he was anymore.

Because there, in the very center of the auditorium sat this girl with the most extraordinary expression. She looked warm and soft in a cozy beige sweater and with her hair tucked messily into a bun, locks flying everywhere, so casually beautiful and so vulnerable Ben immediately felt like putting his hands behind his back. She looked like a ray of light, starry eyed and gaping down at him.

He felt weightless, drawn into her orbit, falling again, except this time it didn’t feel like losing himself, this time it felt like coming home.

Without even noticing it, Ben took a step towards her, and then he smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeah, so this is a thing now...


	3. LIGHTS UP

Rey couldn’t remember Professor Holdo’s class ever being so difficult to concentrate on nor her students being so all over the place. They all worked too hard to get in to afford letting even a moment of her lecture go to waste, and yet Rey found herself torn between glancing over her shoulder at the dark figure in the last row - hunched over his notes, hair falling down to hide the most his face like a mask and his glasses reflecting the stark auditorium light - and Poe’s hushed retelling of every bit of tabloid gossip that she’s clearly missed out on growing up all the way in London.

“So his mother used to be this Hollywood starlet married to Han Solo - you know who he is, right? - until she sort of up and became this activist and kind of killed her acting career,” Poe muttered under his breath, his pen unfathomably gliding over the page even as he never seemed to pay attention to a word coming out of Professor Holdo’s mouth. “But that was nothing, because people actually listened to what she had to say, like, she actually made a difference, you know? And then when he was, like, sixteen or seventeen - boom! Leia and Han get divorced, and that’s when he started acting out and all - like really getting in trouble, driving drunk and getting arrested, and telling the paparazzi to go fuck themselves or having fights with his father in the middle of fancy fund-raisers, you know? And that was all anyone talked about for a while - how famous goodie-two-shoes Leia Organa couldn’t keep a husband or get her son in check, but eventually nobody cared anymore. He stopped making it into the news and she started making it in the big league, even though some still refused to take her seriously as a politician. Anyway, long story short - Ben Solo went MIA and when they remembered he even existed and tried to drag him back into the thick of things no one could really tell what he was up to anymore. There were speculations that Leia locked him up in a rehab or that he wasn’t in the country anymore, but who knows, righ-”

“Mister Dameron,” Professor Holdo’s clipped tone was what made Rey whip her head back to the stage and then drop her gaze down to her nearly non-existent notes in embarrassment, “If you’re not interested in this lecture you’re very welcome to leave and never come back.”

“No-no,” Poe hurriedly assured her, somehow managing a self-assured grin, “Sorry Professor!”

This seemed to satisfy Holdo at least to some extent, as she only pursed her lips and leafed through her own notes for a moment, in which Rey silently let out a breath of relief which was clearly too hasty, since as soon as she did, professor very quietly, but very distinctly added:

“And Miss Skywalker, take a picture, least you want to twist your neck.”

Finn snorted - out of shock, more than anything - as did a few other people, but Rey’s stomach actually sank all the way into nonexistence. Called out like that - in front of everybody - like a child that she was so clearly being! She felt too mortified to look up until the end of class, and when it was finally over, she was one of the first to get her stuff and rush out the door.

She was supposed to hang out with Poe and Finn after class, or at least that was the usual routine for when they had lectures together, but she didn’t feel like talking to anyone for a while. She was apparently being utterly ridiculous all throughout the day, first wasting money she didn’t have and then wasting her time like that! Rey simply didn’t feel like putting herself in situations with further potential for humiliation.

What she felt like was sulking on her own, so she got herself a cheap sandwich across the road and in the end, sat down on the steps of her building, shivering from the occasional bursts of wind and watching that same beautiful old Dodge Charger with gold dice hanging from the rearview mirror that she spotted that morning.

Machines were easy - she thought - beautiful in their straightforward simplicity. Machines made sense to her, ever since she was a child. She could make and unmake them, she could fix them, and humans… Well, sometimes she didn’t even know how to fix herself!

There she was - so far from home, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it back the same person she left as - angrily chewing a sandwich that tasted like soggy cardboard, getting crumbs all over the book on her lap, that she bought on a stupid whim, and there was absolutely nothing about it that made sence to her.

She missed Luke again. The old grump always had something mean and sarcastic to say when she got like that, and it somehow never failed to put things into perspective for her...

“I would’ve thought Computer Science majors are better than that.”

It was a voice that Rey never heard before - deep, unhurried, like its owner would expect the whole world to slow down just to hear him out. It gave Rey goosebumps, although she was already shivering from the cold in the air, so maybe she was reading too much into it. 

She froze nonetheless, refusing to look up and see who it belonged to. The food she stuffed her mouth with suddenly tasted like nothing at all, and she struggled to swallow.

The footsteps reached her and then passed her by, as Ben Solo made it down five more steps before turning to face her, the two of them now at eye level.

“Is it any good at least?” He dropped his gaze to the book and then looked up at her face again, unreservedly and without a hint of malice.

It was funny how he didn’t look like trouble at all… Even dressed in all black, a prim expensive-looking peacoat over that sweater, and leather gloves covering his hands, he looked mostly unattached. It was as if someone plucked him out of the world of his own - some turbulent place of self-imposed sentence - and stuck him over these surroundings, like a mirage. 

Rey felt like for a moment she couldn’t even see anything else - just him. Maybe this should’ve been the first red flag… Regardless, it didn’t hit any alarms in her mind. In fact, it made her feel strangely grounded, tethered to the alien planet that New York, her university, her whole life here still seemed to be just a second ago.

“I couldn’t say, but I’ve heard you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” she finally managed, sounding harsher than she necessarily intended, and realizing only in hindsight how it could apply to his sentiment two ways.

Ben Solo gave her another one of his puzzling smiles, albeit a bit less unguarded this time, a bitter smile - she thought. 

“As long as you aren’t afraid of disappointment,” he shrugged, looked down, then turned and started walking away again, but turned and spun back around before his shoes hit the pavement. 

Rey watched him transfixed and confused.

“I’m being rude,” he noted, as if telling himself off, except his eyes never left hers this time, “I’m Ben, but you already knew that, didn’t you, Rey Skywalker?”

She felt like crawling into a hole and lying there to die. There went her hope that he sat too far away to hear Professor Holdo!

“I wouldn’t care one way or the other,” she snapped, too quickly to make it sound believable, she belatedly realized.

“Skywalker - that’s an interesting last name,” Ben Solo mused, ignoring her temper entirely. He seemed to have a habit of talking in sidenotes and throwaway opinions a lot, which Rey refused to find endearing in its familiarity.

She knew her last name was too rare and sometimes too well-known for comfort, but she doubted somebody like Ben Solo would know of it, and she definitely wasn’t going to flatter his ego by getting baited so easily again.

And yet, apparently, her silence didn’t phase him either, because the next thing he said was:

“I’m going for a lunch. Join me. Please.”

None of it was a question, but he said it all very deliberately, in separate sentences, as if that would make his ridiculous request any more reasonable.

Rey only gaped, and as the seconds ran away with her, Ben Solo actually offered her a hand. And the most nonsensical thing was that she wanted to take it. There was that feeling again of something more, something big and impossibly important drawing her in, and for a second she almost did - almost reached for him in return. But then she looked at his gloved beckoning fingers, skin hidden under black leather, and everything Poe said went rushing back to her.

Of course he’d ask her out! He already thought she was some dumb floozy reading stupid popular books because they were popular and unable to keep her eyes off him because he was this larger-than-life tabloid gossip made real! 

“I- I don’t-” she stammered, dropping her gaze to her worn filthy trainers, and only then managing to take a deep breath and get her stampeding heart in check, “I have a class in bit.”

“I see,” was all Ben said in response.

He didn’t sound very disappointed - which only made sense - and she didn’t dare look up again until she was sure that he left. What made her snap her head up was a beautiful growl of an engine roaring to life.

Rey stared again at that same old Dodge Charger as Ben Solo drove it out of the parking lot and away, and felt like screaming.


	4. POISON

Ben leaned back in his chair and pinched his nose bridge, sighing heavily. His neck was stiff and his eyes stung from staring at his computer screen for hours, slicing and stitching the piece he’s been working on for nearly six months now to accommodate a new main character. She didn’t exactly fit in - there was nothing tying her to the narrative, she came from nothing, but there was something refreshing about it - something that, Ben hoped, would breathe life into what slowly descended into being another Dark Side. And it wasn’t that he’s been intentionally holding on to it, he just didn’t exactly know how to let go…

Not until that morning.

He rubbed his face and failed to suppress a groan. There was that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the freefall of anxiety that he’s been balancing on the verge of ever since he heard that name again.

Skywalker…

How long has it been? Years surely, many years.

Not that he ever really forgot, not that.

But the girl… No, it had to be a coincidence! She was too old to be the man’s daughter, and British. It had to have been a cruel joke on the part of the universe, not that it would be the first he’s been party too.

And yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about her - her passionate words, her temper, her eyes, so expressive of the emotion behind them. He probably scared her away, came on too strong too fast - she must’ve heard of his past… It’s no wonder really that she wanted nothing to do with him. And for good reason probably - there he was obsessing over her already, writing about her, trying to invent her as if to make up for having no way of actually knowing her! 

He didn’t even think it was possible after so many years of not caring for anyone one way or the other… He didn’t think he had it in him to care that way.

His phone buzzed. He let it, he should’ve turned it off in the first place - that was usually his first and only ritual for getting work done, but he was too busy, too consumed with ideas to bother today.

It buzzed again, and his balancing over the abyss act took an unexpected strain. For a second Ben felt like he might tumble over the edge and plummet into the darkness. He held on, breathing hard, and then he got up and walked over to where he left his cellphone.

His mother was always good at letting him have his space. And even when this space led to his making every mistake in the book, Leia Organa kept her head and waited for him to come to her, and when he inevitably did she would offer him comfort and a piece of her mind for good measure.

There were seven missed calls and a few voice messages to her name on his phone now. Ben didn’t let her next call go unanswered, he picked up on the first ring.

“Ben?” 

She sounded shaken, frantic and hoarse, like she might’ve been crying. Struggling to get enough air, Ben sank down onto the sofa at his side. He didn’t know what was wrong exactly, just sensed that something was… So wrong in fact, it made him dizzy, weak at the knees. Whatever news that made Leia so desperate to reach him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“I’m here,” Ben finally managed to answer, barely registering his own words.

“It’s your father,” she said, in a much more controlled manner, that always left him equally astounded and resigned. Somehow, Ben Solo failed to inherit this one of his mother’s traits, his own emotions always dragging him along in their wake of destruction. 

She waited for him to reply, but this time he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he waited, letting his mother breathe and compose herself on the other end of the line.

“He had a heart attack,” she let him know in the end, her voice breaking, “While driving. He’s in the hospital and I’m on my way there too.”

“Which hospital?” He asked robotically, his voice a stark contrast to the turmoil inside.

“I’m texting you the address.”

He was grateful she didn’t ask whether he was coming - Ben knew far too well that there was a time when he wouldn’t have and wouldn’t really blame his mother for remembering it. As it turned out, Leia forgave much easier than people gave her credit for…

As soon as she hung up, Ben kicked himself into motion, collecting his keys and jogging down the stairs to the underground parking lot, too restless to handle a ride in the elevator.

It was a short drive to the hospital and then a long wait in a claustrophobically small hallway of the ICU. His mother looked mostly as composed and well put-together as ever - not a hair out of place, a pristine crisp suit and unreadable expression - but Ben could tell immediately how stressed and worn out she really was. He wanted to say something to comfort her, but every time he opened his mouth nothing came out.

Leia’s expression softened anyway as she nodded and offered her son a hug.

During those exhausting hours in the waiting room she mostly sat still, looking straight ahead as if the antiseptic-smelling air had all the answers in the universe and would reveal them if only she had enough patience. Ben was pacing - the rhythmic movement of his footsteps against the pale linoleum the only thing keeping him sane. 

And then they let them see him.

Han Solo looked old and very fragile on the hospital bed, pale and grey, with shallow scrapes and bruises on his face, hooked and plugged into so much noisy machinery it barely made any sense to Ben. He could remember when his father was utterly invisible. He was a legend after all! He was Han Solo - the man who set his cars on fire, crashed them, turned them over and always walked away unscathed. 

This Han Solo could barely keep his eyes open, and yet as soon as he had them on Leia and Ben he managed if but a ghost of his famous crooked smile - somehow simultaneously sheepish and smug.

Without thinking Ben rushed over, kneeled at his father’s bedside and froze, suddenly afraid to touch him. He heard his mother walk up and felt her rest a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Ben,” Han Solo rasped, his smile finally reaching his eyes.

Immediately, Ben found himself transported into the past, to the time when their roles were reversed - he was the one crashing, looking like shit and well on his way of putting himself into an early grave, and his father was the one desperate to help. 

He was drunk that night, hasn’t slept in hell knows how long, and flashing red lights along with a pulsing beat of music in the club was making it hard for him to keep his focus.

Hux and Snoke were waiting for him across the mass of twisting, sweaty bodies, much more sober and collected than himself, a contract he was about to sign laid out on a short sticky table between them. 

He thought his insanity had finally caught up with him when he heard his father’s voice, his own name in that voice. What in the world would Han Solo be doing in a place like that?

When Ben spun around unsteadily though, there he surely was.

“Han Solo,” he laughed, his dark humor verging on hysteria, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

It was merely a throwaway line, fitting, but also startlingly true, now that he said it. This was the final thing he needed to cement his downfall - his own father witnessing it, making it painfully real. 

“Put that down, you don’t need it,” he replied, glancing briefly at an expensive bottle in Ben’s hand.

“What do you think will happen if I do?”

Surely, it wasn’t as easy as walking away once.

“I’ll have my son back,” Han replied with conviction, his skin wrinkling in a small hopeful smile.

Ben bristled, frustrated going on furious.

“Your son is gone,” he spat, “He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.”

Even more infuriatingly, his words didn’t seem to reach his father, or perhaps he was dismissing them as lightly as always…

“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe,” Han argued with quiet certainty, “But that’s not true. My son is right here, in front of me.”

“Then he only knows me better than you ever did.”

“Snoke is using you to hurt your mother!” His father finally snapped, “When he gets what he wants he’ll crush you. You know it’s true.”

And Ben did - of course he did. But maybe that was fitting, maybe that was only right…

“It’s too late,” he muttered in a low voice, his words slurred.

“No, it’s not,” Han shook his head, surprising Ben, “Leave here with me. Come home. I miss you.”

Now he said it! Now that it no longer mattered!

Ben wanted to scream, but there was no more rage in him, no more energy, not even to walk away.

“I’m tired,” he said, just as softly, only now realizing it’s been there for weeks - the deep, gnawing exhaustion - of his work, of his life, of himself, “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?”

He didn’t know why he was still talking - surely after so many years his father wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t realize what he was saying. When he looked into Han Solo’s eyes though, he was taken aback by his own agony reflected back at him.

He’s been torn apart for so long. He wanted to be free of this pain, but he thought there was only one way to do it… And he wasn’t strong enough, brave enough to do even that.

He needed help, he so desperately needed his father, even then.

“Yes,” Han nodded emphatically, stepping closer and steadying his son, “Anything.”

He would do anything for his father now, Ben knew. Not out of guilt or obligation, but rather sheer mind-numbing panic at the thought of losing him.

“Dad,” he breathed, sobbed, as Han’s hand reached up weakly and found his face.

“I know,” his father smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! I have no life so there.


End file.
